As is if were not bad enough that UNESCO recently passed a resolution declaring the Temple Mount to be Muslim, not Jewish, now the Palestinian Authority plans to seize ownership of the Dead Sea Scrolls and “demand that UNESCO order Israel to surrender the artifacts.”

Among the Scrolls are partial or complete copies of every book in the Hebrew Bible (except the book of Esther)….

The Qumran Caves Scrolls preserve a large range of Jewish religious writings from the Second Temple period, including parabiblical texts, exegetical texts, hymns and prayers, wisdom texts, apocalyptic texts, calendrical texts, and others.

The Green Line is an administrative default border (an armistice line) that never existed prior to 1949, and was created under arbitrary conditions following Israel’s Independence War.

This latest attempt to hijack history comes after Palestinians have advanced the irrational argument that Jesus was a Palestinian because Bethlehem is administered by the PA; never mind that Jesus (Yeshua) was “from the House of David” according to Scriptures. Palestinian Media Watch has cited the regularity of the references to “Jesus the Palestinian” by prominent Palestinians, including the Governor of Ramallah, Leila Ghannam (“We all have the right to be proud that Jesus is a Palestinian”); senior PA leader Jibril Rajoub (“The greatest Palestinian in history since Jesus is Yasser Arafat“); and an editorial in the PA official daily — Al-Hayat Al-Jadida — that referred to the “holy Trinity” of Arafat, Abbas and Jesus.

Pure lies and fabrication of history are nothing new for Islamic supremacists hell-bent on degrading, delegitimizing, destroying and even attempting to erase Israel’s presence in ancient Biblical history. And now they know that at UNESCO, they will find willing accomplices. The Dead Sea Scrolls in themselves bear witness to the ancient Jewish presence in the land; that may be why the Palestinians want to get hold of them, so as to try to make sure that people aren’t able to use them to make the case for Israel.

The Palestinian Authority is planning to claim ownership of the Dead Sea Scrolls and demand that UNESCO order Israel to surrender the artifacts, Israel Hayom learned over the weekend.

Discovered in the Qumran Caves in the eastern Judean Desert between 1947 and 1956, the scrolls — a trove of 981 different texts dating back to the time of the Second Temple — are believed to be the work of members of a Jewish sect known as the Essenes.

The majority of the scrolls are written in Hebrew, some are written in the Aramaic dialects common to the area at that time, and a handful of parchments are written in Greek.

The Palestinian’s first move on the matter took place last week, during a meeting of UNESCO’s subcommittee on the retrieval and return of cultural property to its countries of origin, which operates in an advisory capacity.

Israel, which is not a member of the committee, has observer status in the forum.

The Palestinian delegate claimed that as the scrolls were found in an archeological dig beyond the Green Line, Israel has taken possession of then illegally.

Qumran is located in Area C of the West Bank, which under the 1993 Oslo Accords is under Israeli civil and military control.